Slowly but steadily, the share of minorities in government jobs is increasing. It has now touched 9%, with Muslims taking away a big chunk of the posts.

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Latest minority affairs ministry figures indicate a positive growth over the last three years, with railways, defence, paramilitary, PSUs and banks recruiting most minority candidates.

After the Sachar Committee said in 2006 that the 15% Muslims in the country had only 2-5% representation in government jobs, the Centre took remedial measures.

The department of personnel and training (DoPT) asked all government institutions, departments and agencies to increase the share of minorities in jobs.

They were asked to indicate the increase in absolute percentage terms. DoPT also insisted on having one minority member on the selection board wherever more than 10 persons were to be recruited.

The Sachar Committee had pointed out that of the 19 lakh personnel in the security forces, including the three defence forces, only 4% were Muslims and of the 88 lakh employees in different government departments, agencies and institutions, only 5%. In PSUs and civil services, this share was 3%.

While it is difficult to assess the gain for Muslims since the ministry does not maintain community-wise data, officials said about 80% of government jobs had gone to Muslims in the past three years.

The overall minority representation in government jobs has also gone up impressively -- from 12,182 during 2006-07 to 15,172 during 2008-09. Of the total minority candidates recruited during 2008-09, railways, one of the largest employers in the world, hired almost 20%.

Of the total railway recruitment, 8.3% seats went to minorities. Public sector banks and other financial institutions recruited close to 28%, almost 9% of the total hiring. The paramilitary recruited 20% and PSUs 13.8%.

Among ministries, home and defence did the best. The defence ministry, mainly through army, air force and navy recruitment drives, ensured that almost 22% of the personnel it hired were from the minority community.

Similarly, the ministry of home affairs hired about 10% from the community through paramilitaries. In fact, Assam Rifles and Border Security Force now have almost 25% minority representation, up 21%.

The paramilitary recruited almost 40% of the total minority hiring during 2007-08, up from 22% during 2006-07.